The lack of barriers was the main concern people had for Andrew Radcliffe, a district engineer for the Maryland Department of Transportation, during a forum Wednesday about the crash.

Radcliffe was joined by Frederick County Fire Chief Tom Coe; Christopher Ralston, the program manager for the Maryland Department of the Environment’s oil control program; and Frederick Police Department Lt. Kevin Meyer to answer questions from Frederick County residents about the crash and emergency response.

Each panelist explained their roles in the incident and what comes next.

Radcliffe was quick to mention that a guardrail stretching from the U.S. 15 bridge over Rosemont and along the ramp will be installed on Sunday as a temporary protection measure for the residents of Apple Avenue.

It will remain there at least until the U.S. 15 expansion project begins in 2026, when MDOT will be adding one lane in each direction to U.S. 15 where the median currently is, and adding noise barriers for the neighborhoods that are right next to the highway.

However, during the audience question-and-answer part of the forum, people pressed for answers on why a noise barrier can’t be put up sooner, both for safety and simple quality of life for residents.

One man invited county and city government official to join him in his backyard on Wyngate Drive, which runs along U.S. 15 farther south near South Jefferson Street, to hear just how loud the highway already is. There isn’t a noise barrier there, he said.

“I cut my grass with a gas lawnmower and I can't hear over the traffic. So please come over. Hear for yourself,” he said.

Leigh Brownell-Currens questioned MDOT's logic of first expanding U.S. 15 and then adding a noise barrier. She lives on Wilson Place, a few blocks away from U.S. 15, and she was struck by how other neighborhoods that border the highway have had noise barriers since before she moved there in the 1970s.

“The priorities of building the middle strip, before putting in sound barriers, to me seems a little bit like putting the cart in front of the horse,” she said. “These two communities on either side of [U.S.15] have had to endure safety concerns and noise pollution for years.”

Radcliffe ensured that one part of the project wouldn't be built before the other.

"The noise mitigation would be part of the widening project. So they're one and the same, linked together," he said.

Community members and those who drive on the highway expressed at the forum how unsafe they think U.S. 15 is in general. Cars fly at 75 miles per hour when the speed limit is 55, many said.

Others shared how they were nearly run off the road because another driver didn’t yield.

“There are so many people speeding on that road,” Lee Place resident Kelly Smart said. “It is incredible. It's scary. I know a lot of people that will avoid 15 completely because of the traffic and then the speeding.”

Middletown resident Bob Smart said he believed the problems of U.S. 15 come from the fact that it no longer serves the purpose it was initially built for. He recommended to state transportation officials that they build an eastern bypass rather than expand the lanes.

“Over the 70 years Frederick has grown, it is no longer a through road that takes traffic out of the build-up area. It is more realistically an urban suburban collector road,” he said.

Kelly Sanders, a resident of Lee Place, asked for state transportation officials to at least put up speed cameras to have people drive slower on U.S. 15. Radcliffe responded by saying that the department is only allowed to put speed cameras in work zones.

Sonny Smoyer, a resident of Biggs Avenue for more than 40 years, said this was the closest the community has ever gotten to getting a noise barrier between his street and the highway. But he lamented that it took a tragic crash and loss of life to get closer.

“Don't give us the bare minimum.” he said. “Go above and beyond what we deserve.”

In an interview after the meeting, he summarized his feelings on the barrier finally being built: “Actions speak louder than words.”